Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

King Kong Groover

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Released
  
26 February 1999

Release date
  
26 February 1999

Label
  
EMI Music Japan

Artist
  
Babylon Zoo

Producer
  
Jas Mann

King Kong Groover httpsimagesnasslimagesamazoncomimagesI4

Genres
  
Alternative rock, Glam rock

King Kong Groover is the second album by Babylon Zoo, released on 26 February 1999. The singles from the album were "All the Money's Gone", which peaked at #46 on the UK Singles Chart, and a cover of Mott the Hoople's "Honaloochie Boogie", which was issued as a promotional single in France (plans for an international release were abandoned).

Contents

The song "Chrome Invader" was originally called "Silver Surfer" but had to be changed for copyright reasons. The Japanese version of the album includes two bonus tracks - an acoustic cover of T.Rex's "Cosmic Dancer" and a remix of "The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes".

Critical

King Kong Groover met with negative reviews. A New Musical Express journalist awarded the album one out of ten, calling it a "slickly produced machiavellian plundering of pop classics" and a "clumsy effort to resurrect a career that was a fluke in the first place." Scotland on Sunday reviewer Colin Somerville accused the band of plagiarising The Beatles' "Across the Universe" on "Bikini Machine", and wrote: "Sadly lacking in anything even remotely approaching originality, King Kong Groover is the sound of a career spinning into terminal decline."

Deviating from critical consensus in a retrospective review, Dave Thompson of AllMusic said that while there is "nothing in sight to even approach the peaks that their debut hit 'Spaceman' attained", the album has "yearning majesty" and "neo-operatic flair".

Commercial

An "abject failure", King Kong Groover sold less than 10,000 copies and did not chart.

Track listing

(All songs written by Jas Mann unless otherwise noted.)

  1. "All the Money's Gone"
  2. "Manhattan Martian"
  3. "Honaloochie Boogie" (Ian Hunter/Mick Ralphs)
  4. "Honeymoon in Space"
  5. "Stereo Superstar"
  6. "Chrome Invader"
  7. "Bikini Machine"
  8. "Are You a Boy or a Girl"
  9. "Hey Man"
  10. "Aroma Girl"
  11. "Cosmic Dancer" (Marc Bolan) (Japanese version only)
  12. "The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes" (Armageddon Babylon mix) (Japanese version only)

Songs

1All the Money's Gone3:46
2Manhattan Martian6:01
3Honaloochie Boogie3:28

References

King Kong Groover Wikipedia
(Text) CC BY-SA